Did anyone consider that this might have been dreamed up by someone who is pro-Linux who thought that the anti-MS sentiment hasn't been high enough lately, so they stirred the pot? Yeah, I kind of doubt it, too... or maybe this comment was meant to stir up pro-MS sentiment amongst the people that don't want to be manipulated by pro-Linux anti-MS reverse-psychology.
What if the article was meant to stir up bad feelings amongst free-as-in-freedom GNU devs at both MS and open-source devs?
What if it was meant to stir up bad feelings by MS users who want us to think that it was stirred up by GNU devs? or maybe it was the GNU devs who want us to think that it was MS devs who really wanted us to think that it was GNU devs?
Which is unfortunate, because Plan 9, while carrying some awesome "beyond-POSIX" ideas, was born dead.
I think both GNU/Linux and Windows are not dead, just mature. Unfortunately, their maturity means it's really hard to teach them new tricks (for example, like non-hierarchical filesystems, which were recently discussed on HN), so, when considering all those fancy new (and sometimes not so new) ideas, those mature OSes certainly feel somehow old and limited.
